Munroe's introduction: These are the most valuable sources for the crusade Of Frederic
II. Each of the contestants tells the story from his own
standpoint. We have comparatively little data for controlling
their statements and determining their motives. See Rohricht:
Reitrage zur Geschichte der Kreuzzuge, Vol. I.

Gerold, patriarch of Jerusalem, to all the faithful--greeting.

If it should be fully known how astonishing, nay, rather
deplorable, the conduct of the emperor has been in the eastern
lands from beginning to end to the greet detriment of the cause of
Jesus Christ and to the great injury of the Christian faith, from
the sole of his foot to the top of his head no common sense world
be found in him. For he came, excommunicated, without money and
followed by scarcely forty knights, and hoped to maintain himself
by spoiling the inhabitants of Syria. He first came to and there
most discourteously seized that noble man J. [John] of Ibelin and
his sons, whom he had invited to his table under pretext of
speaking of the affairs of the Holy Land. Next the king, whom he
had invited to meet him, he retained almost as a captive. He thus
by violence and fraud got procession of the kingdom.

After these achievements he passed over into Syria. Although in
the beginning he promised to do marvels and although in the
presence of the foolish he boasted loudly, he immediately sent to
the sultan of Babylon to demand peace. This conduct rendered him
despicable in the eyes of the sultan and his subjects, especially
after they discovered that he was not at the head of a numerous
army which might have to some extent added weight to his words.
Under the pretext of defending Joppa, he marched with the
Christian army towards that city, in order to be nearer the sultan
and in order to be able more easily to treat of peace or obtain a
truce. What more shall I say? After long and mysterious
conferences and without having consulted any one who lived in the
country, he suddenly announced one day that he had made peace with
the sultan. No one saw the text of the peace or truce when the
emperor took the oath to observe the articles which were agreed
upon. Moreover, you will be able to see clearly how great the
malice was and how fraudulent the tenor of certain articles of the
truce which we have decided to send to you. The emperor for giving
credit to his word wished as a guarantee only the word of the
sultan, which he obtained for he said among other things that the
holy city was surrendered to him.

He went thither with the Christian army on the eve of the Sunday
when "Oculi rnei" is sung [third Sunday in Lent]. The Sunday
following, without any fitting ceremony and although
excommunicated, in the chapel of the sepulchre of our lord, to the
manifest prejudice of his honor and of the imperial dignity, he
put the diadem upon his forehead, although the Saracens still held
the temple of the lord and Solomon's temple, and although they
proclaimed publicly as before the law of Mohammed--to the great
confusion and chagrin of the pilgrims.

This same prince, who had previously very often promised to
fortify Jerusalem, departed in secrecy from the city at dawn on
the following Monday. The Hospitalers and the Templars promised
solemnly and earnestly to aid him with all their forces and their
advice, if he wanted to fortify the city, as he had promised. But
the emperor who did not care to set affairs right, and who saw
that there was no certainty in what had been done, and that the
city in the state in which it bad been surrendered to him, could
be neither defended nor fortified, was content with the name of
surrender, and on the same day hastened with his family to Joppa.
The pilgrims who had entered Jesusalem with the emperor,
witnessing his departure, were unwilling to remain behind.

The following Sunday when "Laetare Jerusalem" is sung [fourth
Sunday in lent], he arrived at Acre. There in order to seduce the
people and to obtain their favor, he granted them a certain
privilege. God knows the motive which made him act thus, and his
subsequent conduct will make it known. As, moreover, the passage
was near, and as all pilgrims, humble and greet, after having
visited the Holy Sepulchre, were preparing to withdraw, as if they
had accomplished their pilgrimage, because no truce had been
concluded with the sultan of Damascus, we seeing that the holy
land was already deserted and abandoned by the pilgrims, in our
council formed the plan of retaining soldiers, for the common
good, by means of the alms given by the king of France, of holy
memory.

When the emperor heard of this, he said to us that he was
astonished at this, since he had concluded a truce with the sultan
of Babylon. We replied to him that the knife was still in the
wound, since there was not a truce or with the sultan of Damascus,
nephew of the aforesaid sultan and opposed to him, adding that
even if the sultan of Babylon was unwilling, the former could
still do us much harm. The emperor replied, saying, that no
soldiers ought to be retained in his kingdom without his advice
and consent, as he was now king of Jerusalem. We answered to that,
that in the matter in question, as well as in all of a similar
nature, we were very sorry not to be able, without endangering the
salvation of our souls, to obey his wishes, because he was
excommunicated. The emperor made no response to us, but on the
following day he caused the pilgrims who inhabited the city to be
assembled outside by the public crier, and by special messengers
he also convoked the prelates and the monks.

Addressing them in person, he began to complain bitterly of us,
by heaping up false accusations. Then turning his remarks to the
venerable mater of the Templars, he publicly attempted to severely
tarnish the reputation of the latter, by various vain speeches,
seeking thus to throw upon others the responsibility for his own
faults which were now manifest and adding at last, that we were
maintaining troops with the purpose of injuring him. After that he
ordered all foreign soldiers, of if they valued their lives and
property, not to remain in the land from that day on, and ordered
count Thomas, whom he intended to leave as bailiff of the country,
to punish with stripes any one who was found lingering, in order
that the punishment of one might serve as an example to many.
After doing all this he withdrew, and would listen to no excuses
or answers to the charges which he had so shamefully made. He
determined immediately to post some cross-bowmen at the gates of
the city, ordering them to allow the Templars to go out but not to
return. Next he fortified with cross-bows the churches and other
elevated positions, and especially those which commanded the
communications between the Templars and ourselves. And you may he
sure that he never showed as much animosity and hatred against
Saracens.

For our part, seeing his manifest wickedness, we assembled all
the prelates and all the pilgrims, and menaced with
excommunication all those who should aid the emperor with their
advice or their services against the church, the Templars, the
other monks of the holy land, or the pilgrims.

The emperor realizing that his wickedness could have no success,
was unwilling to remain any longer in the country. And, as if he
would have liked to ruin everything, he ordered the cross-bows and
engines of war, which for a long time had been kept at Acre for
the defense of the Holy Land, to be secretly carried onto his
vessels. He also sent away several of them to the sultan of
Babylon, as his dear friend. He sent a troop of soldiers to Cyprus
to levy heavy contributions of money there and, what appeared to
us more astonishing, he destroyed the galleys which he was not
able to take with him. Having learned this, we resolved to
reproach him with it, but shunning the remonstrance and the
correction, he entered a galley secretly, by an obscure way, on
the day of the Apostles, St. Philip and St. James, and hastened to
reach the island of Cyprus, without saying adieu to any one,
leaving Joppa destitute; and may he never return.

Very soon the bailiffs of the above-mentioned sultan shut off all
departure from Jerusalem for the Christian poor and the Syrians,
and many pilgrims died thus on the read.

This is what the emperor did, to the detriment of the Holy Lend
and of his own soul, as well as many other things which are known
and which we leave to others to relate. May the merciful God deign
to soften the results! Farewell.